Kale & sweetcorn fritters

And... after a shockingly long leave of absence due to a) the fact we've got an allotment and b) that work has been utterly, utterly crazed, I'm back blogging my recipes again. This time it's fritters.

So, critical question - can you get a bit of fluffy loveliness with a  vegan batter? Of course you can! Hurl bicarb of soda and baking powder together and the whole think lifts wonderfully.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 cup of soya milk
2 cups curly kale
1 tin sweetcorn
Veg oil for frying

Method:

Super easy this one. Steam the kale and set it to one side. You might want to open and drain the sweetcorn too. Sift the flour into a bowl with the bicarb, the baking powder and the sea salt. With a fork, mix in the soya milk until you've got a smooth batter. Now turn in the kale and the sweetcorn and mix well.

Heat some vegetable oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok and then add a spoonful of the fritter mixture at a time. Allow to fry for around 1.5 - 2 minutes until golden brown and then turn over and do the other side.

Serve as a starter with soy sauce for dipping - or in our case with some rice and peas.

Sugar snap peas with soya chunks

Terrible name, great product... Textured Vegetable Protein or TVP makes me feel like I've just picked up my dinner from Pets R Us. It needs a rebrand desperately and I'll be more than happy to help if the manufacturers fancy giving me a call.

When I first went veggie at 17, the market for meat free goods hadn't moved on that much from the days when tins of wheat gluten and 'nut meats' were given out as part of post-war vegetarian rations; it was all pretty bleak to be honest. One of the products that I tried, and misused terribly, was the appallingly named 'Textured Vegetable Protein'. The forerunner of Quorn and vegemince, these chunks of compressed soya flour appeared dry, tasteless and tantamount to punishment for those who had decided animals weren't on the menu.

Of course – like other meat 'analogues' - I just wasn't cooking it properly. Hurling dusty TVP into an insipid tomato sauce is guaranteed to disappoint, and there is a much better way. So tonight's dinner is, to my mind, how you do it and come up with something fabulous. Yes, it is 'pretending' to be meat, but as I've said before, unless you went veggie because of some strange aesthetic objection to the mouthfeel of meat, I don't see why this is a problem.

So tonight's dinner is TVP chunks with sugar snap peas and kale in a rich bouillon, served with basmati rice. A yummy, quick and filling tea.

Ingredients:

200g large chunks TVP
4 tbsp vegetable bouillon powder
400 ml boiling water
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
100g sugar snap peas, chopped
100g curly kale, chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp soy sauce
Sea salt and fresh black pepper to serve

Method:

Make up half the vegetable bouillon (2 tbsp) with 200ml of boiling water and then soak the TVP in the vegetable bouillon (or you can use vegetable stock) for a good half hour or so. This for me is critical and makes the whole dish work. We'll drain the chunks later. In a wok, fry the onion and garlic in the vegetable oil until the onion becomes transparent. Drain the TVP, and then add to the wok and toss until it starts to brown. Then add the sugar snap peas and kale and cook for 4-5 minutes until the vegetables are cooked through.

In a mixing jug, add the other 2 tbsp of vegetable bouillon to the cornflour and the soy sauce and mix through, then add 200ml of boiling water to make a rich sauce, add this to the TVP mix in the wok, and you're read to go.

To serve:

This mix - super savoury - is great with mashed potatoes but tonight I served it up with some basmati ice, pressed into a ramekin so that it made a cool little mound on the plate; gives a bit of height and structure to the dish. Add sea salt or black pepper to taste.

Roasted leeks with tofu & mustard mashed potatoes

Right, if you do nothing else in the next week, roast some leeks in olive oil until they're crispy, sweet and delicious. Tonight's dinner was a bit of a triumph, mainly because of the playful, crunchy, delicate strands of roasted leek that played across the plate. Total winner. Also a great 'new best friend' for our roasted cubes of tofu. Roasting tofu is fabulously easy, low fat, and results in lovely, crispy bits of yumminess that are miles away from the mush that some people may have suffered.

Alongside the Leek + Tofu super combo we did a 'pimp my mashed' tonight round our gaff with mashed potatoes combined with steamed kale and dijon mustard. Quite lovely.

And we had some mushy peas. We're not ashamed. We like them. A lot.

Ingredients:

Roasted leeks with tofu

450g tofu
One large leek
2 tbsp olive oil
Garlic salt or mixed herbs
Black pepper

The mustard mash

750g potatoes
130g kale
Tbsp marg
1/2 cup soya milk
2 tsp Dijon

And...

One tin of mushy peas
Malt vinegar

Method:


Coat a baking tray with half the olive oil, and pre heat the oven to 175 degrees centigrade. Cube the tofu into 2-3 cm cubes and arrange on the baking tray, then sprinkle with garlic salt and black pepper. Pop into the oven and set the timer to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile slice the leeks lengthways into quarters, and then half the long strands of leek so they don't become to unwieldy once on the plate. Wash thoroughly - there's always a lot of muck in a leek - and then toss in the other half of the olive oil.

When the tofu's gone for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and sprinkle the strands of leek across the tofu, mixing it in a little. Return to the oven and let roast for a further 15 minutes or until the leeks and tofu are looking golden and crispy.

While all that roasting is going on get the mustard mash ready. Peel the potatoes, and then boil them until soft. If you've got a steamer like mine, boil 'em at the bottom, and use the upper tier for the kale. Steam the kale, only for ten minutes or so, and set aside. When the potatoes are softened, drain and pound with a potato masher. Still using the masher, introduce the margarine and then the soya milk. Finally mix through the mustard. You're done.

To serve:

The kale, mash and mustard mix and the leek and tofu roast work great together but we threw in a tin of mushy peas... Beautifully green and silly amidst the lightness of the tofu and leeks. We also dashed a little malt vinegar over said peas. Well you have to, don't you?

Tempeh, Quinoa & Kale

Right, this one is a superfood showdown. Admittedly, for anyone who isn't a veggie, tripping merrily through the aisles of their local wholefood co-operative, some of the ingredients below might look a little left field but, trust me, once you've got used to chopping up tempeh and splashing mirin around, it'll be a doddle. By the way, if you're in Manchester  this all available, pretty much, at Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton.

But back to the superfood thing. The tempeh alone is pretty amazing with a big dollop of amino acids and protein, oodles of Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, Manganese and B6. The quinoa is silly good for you, with a high level of protein and all the essential amino acids. The seeds and the kale follow up close behind... the good news though is that it tastes great and doesn't come across like some kind of punishment doled out by Gillian McKeith. The dish is great on its own with pitta or similar, could be used as a side dish, and you can even let it cool down to use with a couple of other salads.

Ingredients:

150g tempeh, chopped into 2cm cubes
100g quinoa
150g roughly chopped curly kale
80g mushrooms, sliced
100g mixed sunflower & pumpkin seeds
1 medium onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
2 tbsp veg oil
Tsp salt
Tsp sesame oil
Tsp mirin
Tbsp soy sauce
Tsp rice vinegar

Method:

Start off by cooking the quinoa and laying to one side. It's just like rice in terms of timing and method, so should all be fine. I actually pop a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan first, then add the quinoa and stir through over a high heat, then add boiling water and cook. Using the oil first gives the quinoa a little extra nuttiness.

While all that's going on, pop the tempeh and sliced onion, with the vegetable oil, into a wok and cook until the start to brown. Then, add the seeds and garlic and continue to cook until the seeds start to brown too. All of that should take 15-20 minutes. Then add the mushrooms and salt, and cook until the mushrooms brown.

At this point tip in the kale... I'd use two spoons or spatulas here to toss the mix through, one in each hand, and then the kale will quickly reduce down, like spinach, to become more manageable. At this point add all the lovely oriental liquids: the sesame oil, the mirin, the rice vinegar and the soy sauce. Cook for 10 minutes or so, no more (have no idea why people think you should overcook kale) and then when it's all reduced nicely, turn through with the quinoa. Don't mix in completely - you want the quinoa in relatively fluffy 'clumps' to offset the tempeh and seeds. Yum.

To serve:

The above is a two person recipe as a main meal, four people as one dish amongst many. If it's making its own way in the world, then the simplest thing is serving up with a few slices of pitta bread.